Posts from This Year

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Greetings and Salutations! With only 3 days until bag day, subteams are “in crunch mode”. Bag day is the day when all work on the competition robot needs to be done and the robot is packed for competition. With the extreme weather causing school cancellations, CORE has missed meeting times. Due to this and the limited time until bag day, we are scheduling additional meetings.

Last Saturday, members of the Outreach subteam traveled to Milwaukee for the annual MSOE Cub Scout STEM Fair. We taught Cub Scouts how to cut, strip, and crimp wire. With these skills, they were able to make their own bracelets to take home. Outreach subteam also submitted the Chairman’s Essay and Woodie Flowers Essay and worked on the Chairman’s video.

While fabricating the robot, the Mechanical subteam has encountered some problems with the robot. Using problem solving skills, they fixed the problems and continued their work.

The Controls subteam remade the control board to better fit in the available space. They also tested ultrasonic, which brought them reliable test data which they may use on the robot. The Programming subteam helped Controls test the ultrasonic, worked on autonomous actions, and updated their web dashboard.

The Field subteam has completely finished the field and are now working on other tasks, such as robot bumper design, or rejoining their original subteams.Well, that about wraps up all that is happening on CORE 2062. If you want to keep up with CORE 2062 even more, you can check out our twitter, facebook, and instagram.

Hola mis amigos! Welcome to build season week 5! Last week, we missed multiple meetings due to extreme weather conditions closing schools (-50° wind chill, thanks Wisconsin), so we are working to revise our schedule to make up for lost time.

Outreach has been working on our Chairman’s award, which requires an essay, 13 questions, a video, and a presentation. The Woodie Flowers nomination, which is an award given to a mentor selected by the team, is being finalized.

Mechanical and Design accomplished a lot in the past week! Design finished designing the manipulators and Mechanical finished the chassis, continued work on the lift for the robot, and began manufacturing the manipulators.

Programming tested the drivetrain code, and is working on code for the “sandstorm” part of the competition. Controls has been using AutoCAD electrical to design their control board and is also in the process of building it.Thanks for checking out our blog post. Be sure to check out our Twitter and Instagram and check us out again next week. Until then, have a great week!

Greetings! This is our third week into the build season of DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE and anticipations are rising. CORE is very excited about the competition this year and if you’d like to get to know the game better, you can view the game animation video.

This week, subteams that deal with the robot, have been finalizing their ideas for how to pick up both the cargo and hatches. Specifically, the mechanical subteam has been designing the robot. Currently, they are finished with the chassis of the robot. They have also been working on cutting pieces, designing the intake process for the hatches, and designing the lift.

As for the controls subteam, they have been keeping busy while trying to figure out how they want the robot to function this year. They also tested batteries, video capturing systems, and discussed the space they want for the control board. Controls is also planning how the board will look and are hopefully finalizing the design soon.

Programming is trying to work on this years code for the robot. Controls is trying to fix the programming library and created outlines for code for the manipulators. They are also trying to figure out how they will connect a camera for added assistance during the game and sandstorm period.

Safety has been working on finishing the safety manual and doing general inspections of the building. In the outreach subteam, we have been working hard on meeting our deadlines. We have three essays that need to be submitted before February 27th. We have completed the first draft of questions needed for an essay and our poster for the Midwest Regional. Overall, CORE is very excited and confident for this years season. Please, follow our twitter and facebook. Until next time, have a good week!

Greetings! This is the second week of our build season and CORE is fired up. After deciding what our strategy was for DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE, we had to decide how to execute what we wanted to do. If you would like more information about this year’s game, you can find it here.

This week, subteams have been prototyping to try and determine what the best way is to grab both the cargo and discs. Currently, any student who wanted to, was a part of a discussion to determine the best way to manipulate the game pieces. After a long debate process, we have determined how we are going to pick up the cargo. We have also decided what the manipulation system will be for the hatches.

As for other subteams, programming has been busy trying to organize their files and updating the software on the controllers. Mechanical rookies have also been tasked with finishing a half field for our robot to practice on. So far, they have finished all the levels of the climbing platforms and are currently working on finishing the rocket.

In the outreach subteam, we have been updating our outreach volunteer hours and digitized the data, created a survey to gather information for our essay, and sorted through photos. We have been busy especially with our essays: Chairmans, Entrepreneurship, and Woodie Flowers essay. The Chairman’s essay is “an essay that is representative of our team’s wider impact on our team members and our community,” says Siya Verma, the Business Sub-Lead. The Entrepreneurship essay is an essay that recaps both our spending and our fundraising amounts. Finally, the Woodie Flowers essay is a paper we write about a mentor who we see as an inspiration and leader

Excitement for the new game, DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE, has been growing in CORE. We cannot wait for our upcoming tournament on March 7-9! Come follow CORE on Instagram and Twitter. Have a great week!

Today, students from CORE traveled to Milwaukee School of Engineering,one of our sponsors. We went to promote FIRST and STEM to around 150 boy scouts. We encouraged students to engage by driving small VEX robots that we had constructed. We also taught the boy scouts about engineering concepts used on the past season’s robot by showing videos of it in action and letting the boy scouts touch and see the robot in real life.

The mechanical subteam has been very busy with building our second robot which we use for driver’s practice, improving the design of the robot, and improving the programming of the robot. The second robot is almost complete but it already has a drivetrain and lifting mechanism. The second robot has also given our programmers much needed time to complete code for autonomous and tele-op.

In addition to being apart of the MSOE STEM Fair, the media and business subteams are currently working on the judges booklet and chairman’s presentation. They are also putting together the chairman’s video for this year in addition to designing the t-shirt for this year’s competition.

CORE has many projects running and we are very excited to the near completion of most. We are also excited for our first competition, the Milwaukee Regional competition on March 21st through 23rd.

Greetings and salutations! During the past four weeks CORE persevered to accomplish the bag-and-tag deadline. While Programming, Design, Controls and Mechanical fabricated the robot, the Business and Media subteams completed our award submission essays and are currently working on presentations and pit display data.

Meanwhile, Design is updating the drawings for the robot. Programming is working hard on the tele-op and autonomous code, Mechanical finished the drivetrain of the robot, and Controls completely wired the control board and mounted it on the robot. Media and Business are working on the Chairman’s presentation, judges book, and video for submission.

The Programming, Mechanical, Design, and Controls subteams have been putting in as many hours as the mentors will allow – over 25 hours a week for the past 2 weeks which ensured completion of the robot. While the robot was worked on, the Business and Media subteams documented the robot assembly. All in all, our team has been working like a well oiled machine.

Thank you for all the support this build season. Be sure to stop by next week for another blog post and check our Twitter for updates. Until then, have a great week and don’t forget to ‘power up’.

Greetings and Salutations! This week CORE has been working hard on award submissions and a new drive train. The behind-the-scenes sub teams Business and Media were in the back typing up the Chairman’s, Woodie Flowers, and Entrepreneurship award submissions. These essays are highly important awards for CORE. The most prestigious award, the Chairman’s essay, can bring our team all the way to the championships in Detroit.

All the other sub teams are working on parts of the robot. Mechanical is Creating our scoring mechanism, drivetrain, and chassis. Design just sent the drawings of the drivetrain and chassis to Mechanical and are now working on the scoring mechanism. Controls is creating a draft of the control board and getting components from older robots. Programming is updating the control board, coding the drivetrain, and building sample robot code.

The Team has put a lot of effort into our work this last week with our drawings, drivetrain, chassis, control board, code and award essays and we’re excited to share our hard work with the community. If you’d like to stay up to date with CORE check out our Twitter, and be sure to check back here for weekly updates. Until then, be sure to stay ‘powered up!’

31 Days until Bag-and-Tag / 60 Days until Wisconsin Regional / 74 Days until Seven Rivers Regional / 101 Days until Detroit Championship

Greetings and salutations! This week is midterms week for our school district, so even though we’ve been studying hard, CORE members have still managed to get robotics things done. On Tuesday, we finalized our robot design, and the design team got to work getting the blueprints to Mechanical. Mechanical received a shipment of parts from one of our sponsors (Thanks, Fastenal!), and started building the first parts that we have designs for. Controls has been salvaging parts from older robots to prepare for this year’s control board. Programming has been prepping computers and code, Design has been hard at work designing, and Media and Business are working on award submissions. Along with all of this some members have been recreating field elements for this year’s POWER UP challenge.

When asked about his thoughts on writing the Chairman’s essay, CORE rookie Isaiah said, “As a freshman, writing the chairman’s essay teaches me the CORE values and more about what the team does.” Sakshi, another rookie working on the chairman’s essay had this to say, “Working on the chairman’s essay gives me an opportunity to have a say in an important part of our competitions.”

This past week we’ve been busy with finals, but we’ve been keeping occupied with CORE. If you want to stay up to date with CORE be sure to check back here next week. Also don’t forget to check our Twitter for updates. Until then, have a great week!

38 Days until Bag-and-Tag / 67 Days until Wisconsin Regional / 81 Days until Seven Rivers Regional / 108 Days until Detroit Championship

Hello! Kickoff was one week ago, and our team is powered up and ready for the season. Throughout the past week, we have been in consensus. For those of you that are unfamiliar with our process, here’s a quick explanation. On the kickoff day, we watched the livestream. After quickly discussing initial reactions, everyone read the whole game manual, so that we can all be fluent in the rules of the game. Then, people broke off into groups to start discussing their ideal strategies and what they thought would win the game. We had Sunday off, and on Monday we convened to discuss strategies and which drivetrain we would do. That discussion lasted into Tuesday, and once it was settled, we got to work prototyping different ideas for intakes, lifts, and other parts of the robot. The groups have been working all week on different ideas, and on Tuesday we will present them to the full team and vote on which ones we want to add to our final design. As for members who don’t work on the robot, we are busy writing the awards submissions, planning algorithms for scouting, updating the website, and building a full-scale wooden version of the field for practicing. We have had a very productive past week, and even though there are finals next week, we hope to replicate that. Until then, have a great week and keep checking this page, as well as our Twitter for updates.

If you’ve been on our Twitter lately, you know that there are only 3 days left until the kickoff of the 2018 FRC game, FIRST POWER UP. We are excited for this game, so to commemorate this event, and to have a little fun before the season starts, we asked various members of our team what they thought this year’s game will entail. Here are a few of their responses:

Tim, a veteran member of the Controls subteam: “a climbing game, with pyramid-like stars and possibly shooting”

Aidan, a rookie member of Programming: “pick up coins and score them”

Diego, a rookie member of Programming: “Like a Pac-Man maze, with collecting power pellets or ghosts for points”

James, the safety captain, and Julia, a veteran member of Programming: “stair-climbing”

Avery, the Mechanical lead: “general old-school games, not anything specific, with a person on the field”

Mr. Dickinson, a Mechanical mentor: “a disc of some sort, like a coin, that would enable something. Possibly a change in elevation or a stair climbing, maybe a ladder”

Mr. Carroll, a Business Mentor: “Like Donkey Kong”

Mr. Farrell, the Lead Mentor: “Launching something, possibly a mini-bot or tennis balls that a Pac-Man-like thing can ‘gobble up’”

Mr. Davis, a Business Mentor: “will include a little robot that has to get to a certain level before you can ‘power up’ and use your big robot for the game”

Mrs. Davis, a Business Mentor: “Like Pac-Man, with a robot going around and ‘eating’ balls from the field”We had fun making these guesses, and whether they turn out to be right or not, we know we’ll have fun building our robot when we learn about the game at kickoff on the 6th. Until then, have a great week and keep checking this page, as well as our Twitter for updates.